Entries about long island

We began the day by taking the subway south to Flat Iron Building. The building was completed in 1902 and was then one of the highest buildings in New York with its 20 floors. An additional floor was added three years later. Flat Iron Building is one of the most known landmarks and icons in New York, thanks to its characteristic shape. Then we took the same train but northbound to 49th Street and Gray Line’s ticket office. It was time to collect our bus tickets for tomorrows shopping in Woodbury. When that was taken care of, we didn’t have more plans for the day. We started walking towards Times Square and passed Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and felt that we could spontaneously visit it. Only problem was the gigantic queue lining up outside. Since I visited the museum three years ago, I knew there were VIP tickets with so called “express line”. But to get tickets we needed access to Wi-Fi, which could be found at McDonald’s right next door. So, after some fixing and tinkering getting the e-tickets we could just slip past the queue and go straight in to the museum.

Although the majority of the wax dolls were the same as three years ago there were new wax dolls as well. But what had I expected?

Included in the ticket was the new 4D movie “Super Heroes”. With worthless 3D glasses, a jumping seat, showered with water and other things supposedly making the experience “4D” I was not that impressed. The movie should have had an age limit of “younger than 12 years”.

We strolled further along the streets of New York and decided for lunch at an Italian restaurant. Pretty soon I realized that I had been at this restaurant three years ago as well. And immediately the warning flag popped up – watch out for the garlic! They have tons of garlic in their food. Fortunately, you can choose from their buffet and can thus take only the food you like. But yet I managed to choose a chicken with such strong breading that I had to give to my brother. I like chicken, but this one was too strong for me.

You can easily take the subway to Long Island from Times Square, which we did. Over there you get away from the bustling city traffic and sit down on a bench and see a pretty stunning New York skyline. A little break before we headed back to Manhattan and the hotel. In the afternoon my brother wanted to visit a Game Stop store just a street away from our hotel. At ground level were a lot of TV and computer games. No surprise given the store’s name. Downstairs there was another store, Think Geek. There were gadgets and other things for collectors, toys, t-shirts, electronic gadgets and so on. Big themes were of course Star Wars, Pokémon, Star Trek, Game of Thrones etc. As soon as you got downstairs it was like entering a different world. Think Comic Book Store from TV-series Big Bang Theory, though this store was anything else but comic books.

In one corner was a full-size Storm Trooper, in another corner was Darth Vader. First thought was… OMG?! Do these stores actually exist, for real??? Ha! You learn something new every day While my brother went well in the store I felt out of space. Signs everywhere like “geeks enter here”, “join in – geek out”, it was like geeks everywhere.

But I ended up buying a lamp in shape of BB8, the cute little droid from Star Wars; The Force Awakens. A movie I wouldn’t have seen unless I had been invited Now we were starving and definitely time to eat. We strolled along Avenues and Streets and eventually found a nice little Irish Pub that was just enough room and didn’t play too loud music. You could have a conversation without screaming. Great food and friendly staff and it weren’t expensive (we went here several times during the week). The evening ended with Tequila shot each – bottoms up!